THE COMPLETE volume 1 SONGBOOK MARK STONE SIMON LEPPER THE COMPLETE volume 1 SONGBOOK MARK STONE SIMON LEPPER THE COMPLETE SONGBOOK volume 1 CHARLES WILFRED ORR (1893-1976) SEVEN SONGS FROM “A S HROPSHIRE LAD ” (Alfred Edward Housman) 1 i Along the field 2’58 2 ii When I watch the living meet 3’17 3 iii The Lent lily 1’54 4 iv Farewell to barn and stack and tree 4’51 5 v Oh fair enough are sky and plain 2’54 6 vi Hughley steeple 3’13 7 vii When smoke stood up from Ludlow 2’58 8 SILENT NOON (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) 4’33 9 TRYSTE NOEL (Louise Imogen Guiney) 3’23 10 THE BREWER ’S MAN (Leonard Alfred George Strong) 1’36 TWO SEVENTEENTH CENTURY POEMS 11 i The Earl of Bristol’s farewell (John Digby) 2’01 12 ii Whenas I wake (Patrick Hannay) 1’37 13 SLUMBER SONG (Noel Lindsay) 2’26 14 FAIN WOULD I CHANGE THAT NOTE (Anonymous) 2’09 15 WHEN THE LAD FOR LONGING SIGHS (Alfred Edward Housman) 2’43 16 THE CARPENTER ’S SON (Alfred Edward Housman) 5’29 17 WHEN I WAS ONE -AND -TWENTY (Alfred Edward Housman) 2’01 18 SOLDIER FROM THE WARS RETURNING (Alfred Edward Housman) 2’57 19 WHEN SUMMER ’S END IS NIGHING arr. Mark Stone (b.1969) 3’31 (Alfred Edward Housman) TWO SONGS FROM “A S HROPSHIRE LAD ” (Alfred Edward Housman) 20 i ’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town 1’51 21 ii Loveliest of trees, the cherry 3’34 62’07 MARK STONE baritone SIMON LEPPER piano CHARLES WILFRED ORR The unsung hero of English song Part one: The creation of a song-writer Charles James Orr, a captain in the Indian army, met Jessie Jane Coke whilst visiting his aunt in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. In 1892 they married and joined his regiment in Hyderabad, but James died of tuberculosis the following year and Jessie returned to Cheltenham to live with her mother, stepfather and sister. Soon afterwards, on 31st July 1893, she gave birth to Charles Wilfred Leslie Orr. Willie, as he was known, was a delicate child; an extreme reaction to a childhood vaccination led to recurrent attacks of eczema, which continued until he was over forty years old. In 1903, he started at Cheltenham College, a well-established school that did not consider music to be an important academic subject. F.G. Dyer, the organist and choirmaster, was the only professional musician on the staff, and the music facilities consisted of a few old and damp rooms in a converted stable. Orr considered the school’s attitude towards music to be completely philistine. He sang in the school choir, but took private piano lessons in town and took no part in college concerts or musical activities. He left school just before his 15th birthday and remained at home, due to his ill health, with little hope of a regular profession. He continued to pursue his musical interests, studying harmony and counterpoint with E.A. Dicks, the organist of St Luke’s, Cheltenham, who constantly warned against the degradations of chromaticism and contemporary music in general. His teacher’s conservatism probably had the effect of making new music all the more attractive, nurturing his distaste for classical composers when compared to the bolder, glowing orchestral colours and harmonies of Wagner, Elgar and Strauss. His favourite genre was German Lieder, which he considered to be far superior to English songs of the time. He was a great admirer of the mezzo-soprano Elena Gerhardt, and managed to persuade his mother to attend a recital she gave in London. Inspired by Gerhardt, he bought all the Lieder of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf that he could afford. It was this love of Lieder, Wolf’s in particular, and hearing Gerhardt perform, which led him to want to be a song-writer. For the sake of Orr’s music, he and his mother moved to London just before the outbreak of war in August 1914. Swept up in the wave of patriotism, he joined the Artists’ Rifles Officers Training Corps in 1915, and later gaining a commission to the Coldstream Guards, however, intermittent attacks of eczema prevented him from serving abroad, and before the end of the war he was discharged from the army on medical grounds. Although the musical scene at this time was much reduced, and no German artist or modern German music was presented, Orr took advantage of being in London by hearing a great deal of contemporary music. It was at this time that he first heard the music of Frederick Delius, an experience that had a dramatic effect on him. He attended every concert of Delius’ music that he could and was soon able to recognise him at sight. On 16th June 1915, after a concert of his First violin sonata , he found himself leaving the Aeolian Hall directly behind Delius and his wife. He followed them to a restaurant and after a few moments plucked up the courage to introduce himself and lavish praise upon the composer. He was invited to join their table, and they subsequently saw a good deal of each other. Delius’ ruthless, single-minded attitude towards the execution of his art was in inspiration to a man who had, until this point, drifted somewhat aimlessly; Orr’s privileged upper middle class background meant that he was a man of independent means. He sent three songs to Delius, which, although later destroyed by Orr because of their immaturity, were very encouragingly received. Delius praised Orr’s music for having the most important ingredient: emotion. Orr felt that he was in need of further tuition and so in April 1917 he enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music, emboldened by Delius’ favourable opinion of Landon Robert, the school’s principal. He studied composition with Orlando Morgan, who had no liking for contemporary music, and discouraged all Orr’s chromatic attempts, as opposed to Delius who strongly advised against writing diatonic music. He left the Guildhall in January 1919 and spent six weeks that summer studying counterpoint with Edward Dent. Delius whole- heartedly supported this, his own counterpoint studies with Thomas Ward in Florida being, he considered, the only useful tuition he had ever received. Delius acted as a mentor to Orr, providing the approval for his choice of career that he had not received from school. Orr was introduced to other members of the Delian circle, like Philip Heseltine, who not only introduced him to English musical life, but helped him take his first steps towards a compositional career. THE COMPLETE SONGBOOK volume 1 SEVEN SONGS FROM “A S HROPSHIRE LAD ” Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) Housman’s famous collection of 63 poems, A Shropshire lad , was published in 1896, by which time he was professor of Latin at University College London, despite having initially left Oxford without a degree. In 1911, he was appointed Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge University, and so moved to Trinity College, where he spent the rest of his life. Orr completed this set of seven Housman songs between 1927 and 1931 and, after experiencing some difficulty in finding a publisher for them, funding the printing of the cycle himself, with the help of some friends. 1 i Along the field This first song of the group was written in 1927 and describes a man retracing a walk he made a year earlier with a different lover who has since passed away; he believes that the trees’ whisperings foretold this, and wonders if they are predicting a similar fate for him this time. Orr’s shimmering semi-quavers have been compared to Duparc’s song L’invitation au voyage and together with the wandering figure of the piano’s left hand they give the impression of a journey along a familiar country path into an uncertain future. Along the field as we came by And sure enough beneath the tree A year ago, my love and I, There walks another love with me, The aspen over stile and stone And overhead the aspen heaves Was talking to itself alone. Its rainy-sounding silver leaves; “Oh who are these that kiss and pass? And I spell nothing in their stir, A country lover and his lass; But now perhaps they speak to her, Two lovers looking to be wed; And plain for her to understand And time shall put them both to bed, They talk about a time at hand But she shall lie with earth above, When I shall sleep with clover clad, And he beside another love.” And she beside another lad. 2 ii When I watch the living meet With Philip Heseltine’s death in 1930, Orr lost a good friend and a discerning critic; he sent songs to Heseltine and occasionally destroyed inferior ones at his suggestion. To obtain feedback on this group he sent copies to the writer, Walter Legge, the composer Arnold Bax and the conductor Eugène Goossens. All three responded positively, with Goossens requesting orchestrations of numbers 1, 2, 6 and 7. This second song, reminiscent of Orr’s idol Hugo Wolf, was written in 1930 and is dedicated to Legge. It describes someone looking forward to the calm of death, and an end to the hatred and lust of the life. When I watch the living meet, In the nation that is not And the moving pageant file Nothing stands that stood before; Warm and breathing through the street There revenges are forgot, Where I lodge a little while, And the hater hates no more; If the heats of hate and lust Lovers lying two and two In the house of flesh are strong, Ask not whom they sleep beside, Let me mind the house of dust And the bridegroom all night through Where my sojourn shall be long.